Category: Optimism

Retirement stunned my psychiatrist friend. Accustomed to being a provider, teacher, administrator, and therapist, he was suddenly adrift. It was as though the sails, oars, and motor that had energized his boat had disappeared. He didn’t know what to do with himself. “Who am I?” he asked daily, hoping for an answer. “What is my... Continue Reading →

The Force will be unleashed on a hungry public this Friday. Popcorn and slushies will fertilize the minds of moviegoers eager to digest the wisdom of the Jedi warriors. Or, if not to digest wisdom, perhaps to accompany sheer entertainment. How many times have we jocularly tossed “May the Force be with you” to friends... Continue Reading →

While I cannot find the source for this research, the point it makes is worth sharing. Mental attitudes—mind over matter, thinking positively, reframing, putting a spin on things, looking for the silver lining, deciding to let go of a loss—some are easier to manage than others. I remember the first time I sent a book... Continue Reading →

Chaim Potok unwittingly pointed to this blog post when his narrator, David Lurie, mused early in the 1975 novel In the Beginning: “All Beginnings are hard…. Especially a beginning that you make for yourself. That’s the hardest beginning of all.” David’s beginnings, as are ours, were plentiful: starting life with delicate health, startin g school... Continue Reading →

Recently a colleague asked me a question about optimism. He had been reading Price Pritchett’s Hard Optimism, where he encountered Pritchett’s assertion that optimism was inherited at about half the rate of other behavioral traits. “Why would it be lower?” About a month ago I posted on positivity. In that essay, I did not address... Continue Reading →